


that dream is here beside me

by childhoodinfamy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 21:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2482874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/childhoodinfamy/pseuds/childhoodinfamy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All I longed for long ago was you; or: it's all a lot simpler than Steve thought it was going to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that dream is here beside me

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK5mv02cxQw).
> 
> Sarah [hippoghouliage](hippoghouliage.tumblr.com) and I picked a sappy jazz song and again she [drew this cool thing](http://sarandco.tumblr.com/post/100298586876/just-one-look-and-then-i-knew-that-all-i-longed) and ten years later, I wrote a hunk of crap. Thanks for keeping me around, Sarah.

It’s not as complicated as Steve’s built it up in his head to be. He spent so long thinking about it, about the way it would feel when they actually touched or the way Bucky would smell the same as he did before everything, or that his smile would taste exactly the way Steve always imagined it would, like nothing and everything and chapped lips.

Steve could never have imagined any of it the way it actually is, simultaneously so much less and so much more than anything he dreamed up.

 

It’s a Tuesday, and it’s four in the afternoon.

Steve’s been up for almost twelve hours already. It’s starting to get cold outside. He’s thinking about getting takeout for dinner.

It’s a Tuesday.

 

And then.

 

(The way he imagined it, he’d lose his head one day and kiss Bucky; Bucky would back away, confused look in his eyes—

“We weren’t—we aren’t— _Steve_.”

And Steve would be okay with that. He would pretend to be okay with that. Bucky would move out, eventually. It would be quiet.)

 

(Or, option two: he would _say_ something before he _did_ something, and it would be all too obvious how far gone he was, how many years he’d spent wondering.

Bucky would give a tight smile, an “I’m so sorry, Steve,” and he’d keep living there, but Steve wouldn’t be able to look him in the eyes, not for months. It would be quiet.)

 

(Or: he’d wake up, again, again, again, every damn time, to empty hands.

It would be quiet.)

 

(But maybe: he’d ask permission first, Bucky would be uncomfortable.

Or he’d shrug.

Or, worst, laugh like something was funny.

Steve would laugh along, too, in a stilted kind of way.

He would miss the quiet.)

 

(And a tiny chance: he would kiss him back.)

 

(In Steve’s mind, in this scenario, nothing would be quiet again. He would love it.)

 

But today. Today it’s a Tuesday.

It’s a Tuesday, and he’s not expecting a thing out of the day; he ran, he ate, he read a book. Nat texted him a few times—“dinner tonight? tab’s on you” “Yes please, that would be nice.” “see you at seven” “Can we make it six?” “okay, grandpa. sam’s coming too”—and Bucky had sat with him for a while on the couch.

He was wearing a sweater, and he had socks on.

It was a Tuesday.

 

And then.

 

(When he’d been young, he used to wonder what it was like to be Bucky, kissing girls every day. He didn’t think he’d like it.

But there was something about the way Bucky’s lips curled when he was kissing that caught Steve’s eye. He didn’t like to watch, but he couldn’t stop. Bucky’s lips would always be a little red at the end of the night.

Steve never showed him those drawings; they said too much.)

 

(They used to sleep on couch cushions together, wrapped up in blankets against the New York winter cold, eyes meeting in the dark and grins cracking their faces.

Once he got old enough to think about it, Steve wondered what they’d do if there were only one blanket pile instead of two.)

 

(Years earlier, he’d thought about Bucky’s hands for the first time.)

 

(His distracting fixation never would go away.

It was still there, decades later, even before Bucky was Bucky again.)

 

It’s Tuesday.

 

It’s Tuesday, and Bucky is sitting next to Steve again, the couch just a little too small for both their bodies but plenty big for Steve’s taste.

Bucky’s toes inch under Steve’s thigh; they’re like ice, even through the fabric of Steve’s pants.

“Socks, Bucky,” Steve says. He doesn’t look up.

“Nah. Why do that when your ass can do the trick for me?”

“My leg is not my ass.”

“Oh, really?” And then Bucky’s toes are moving, and really, none of this is any different. It’s just a _Tuesday_.

A Tuesday with Bucky’s toes tucked under his ass.

 

It doesn’t happen anything like Steve thought it would. It happens like this:

 

It’s a Tuesday.

It’s twelve minutes until five, and Steve is thinking about putting on real clothes for his dinner with Natasha and Sam. Bucky’s toes are tucked under his ass, and he’s been wiggling them every few minutes just because he knows it bugs Steve. Bucky’s not wearing pants, just boxers and a t shirt. There’s a show playing. Steve’s reading a book. His breathing is normal, and then—

“Hey,” Bucky says; it’s a regular volume, his regular voice. Like he’s about to ask Steve to share his glass of water, or to hand him the remote.

“Hey,” Steve responds. He doesn’t look up from his book, just raises his eyebrows.

“ _Hey,_ ” Bucky repeats.

Steve looks up now, in the middle of a paragraph, to see Bucky staring at him. “Hey?”

And then everything is so simple. “I’m gonna kiss you, stop me if you want.”

And Steve doesn’t even think before he says, “Okay,” and his breathing is normal, normal, normal until Bucky’s leaning forward, toes still under Steve’s ass, and wrapping a hand around the back of Steve’s neck.

 

He’s still breathing normally when Bucky’s other hand settles in the fabric of his shirt.

 

Nothing changes until they’re actually kissing, and at that, Steve is sixteen again with no oxygen and hands that want to, have to, _need to_ be touching Bucky Barnes—except now, they just _do_. He doesn’t have to sit on them to stop himself, he doesn’t have to hate himself for wanting it, or hate himself for hating himself.

Now, he just reaches up and touches Bucky’s jaw like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like he hasn’t been thinking for decades what exactly it would feel like.

 

Since the super serum, Steve’s felt things a lot more strongly—every sense seems to work twice as well as it ever did before, and he’s never realized it more than he does now, because Bucky smells like summer and he tastes the way his laughter sounds; when he backs up for a moment, Steve can see every emotion pass separately through his eyes and can’t identify a single one by itself, and the _noise_ Bucky makes when Steve smiles at him, it’s inhumane, the way it affects Steve.

“Well,” Bucky says.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees.

“So.”

“Yeah.”

 

It’s a quick slide from there; neither of them is actually wearing much of anything, and they’re in as comfortable a place as any. They’re sloppy and fast today (Steve’s hands feather light and reverent, Bucky’s solid and insistent), but Bucky cries out Steve’s name—over and over and over until it’s no longer a name but a fact—and Steve whispers Bucky’s like it’s the only word he knows.

 

It’s a Tuesday, and Steve cancels his dinner plans.


End file.
